What Are the Best Ways to Relieve Stress

Everyone experiences stress at one point or another. How we deal with the stress is what makes the difference. If you’re someone who doesn’t do well in darker times of pressure, read further for insight on how you can relieve and handle the stress of every day life.

1. Progressive relaxation

This is more physical, but progressive relaxation means to tense every muscle in your body when stretching. Take a deep breath and then release. This makes your body feel more energized and relaxed. This method has been proven to help the mind relieve stress because the body is more relaxed.

2. Breathing deeply

While we mentioned taking a deep breath during progressive relaxation, setting aside some time to relax and take some deep breaths can help reduce cortisol levels. This directly relates to the reduction of stress, which cortisol is highly affected by. This is why so many people meditate; the silence, deep breathing and the reduction of stress in the atmosphere can lower stress levels immensely. Speaking of meditating, self-hypnosis has been proven to help reduce stress and anxiety.

3. Listen to music

If you’re stressed out, listen to your favorite album! If your favorite album is too chaotic and intense with beats and guitar riffs, then try mellow music that is instrumental. Artists like this include Explosions In The Sky. Combining this method with meditating will show extreme results in the reduction of stress levels. This is because music reduces the heart rate and increases dopamine levels in the human body. When this happens, blood pressure reduces and your stress hormones decrease. Music is amazing, isn’t it?

4. Art therapy

Grab a canvas and head out towards a place that offers a beautiful view. Painting, drawing and other artistic outlets have been proven to reduce stress, much like listening and creating music. There are three ways art therapy can help reduce stress. These ways are:

i The way of distractionii The way of flowiii The way of self-care

The way of distraction works so that you can take your mind off of whatever is causing you an immense level of anxiety and stress, even if it’s only temporarily.

The way of flow means that you become so engaged with what you’re doing that you finish the project you’re working on. This reduces stress when you’ve seen the progress you’ve made.

Last but not least,

Self-care, because having something else to do as a hobby can make us feel like we do more with our lives than just work, stress and come home. Even if your hobby is only done for an hour a day or every few days, it makes us feel more full and wholesome at the end of the day.

There are many fun ways to relieve stress and that can help you continually reduce anxiety. The above mentioned are scientifically proven ways to decrease cortisol levels and reduce anxiety which lead to the decrease of stress.